Large Scale Central

CR&N 2021

General Discussion
#1

So I am hosting our club meeting again this Sat. I have the track all up to snuff, except I do nee to clean the turnouts and do a bit of adjusting to the track for smooth running. But for the first time the yard is ballasted, the bench section fully filled with dirt and ballasted, the pond is in and running finally. And I got my drip irrigation in and running so plants won’t die. And I added a couple more buildings. I think its looking pretty good this year. Its a work in progress but really actually starting to look less like a pile of dirt and more like a railroad.

I will post more of the club event.

#2

Railroad looks great, Devon.

#3

Looking good Devon. I see lots of sidings. Built for operations?

#4

I love the vertical “drama” of your layout, Devon. Stairs and duck-unders, really cool!

Looks like some new gravel, really nice with the flat rocks.

And lots of beautiful trackwork!

#5

It is too neat and clean. Expect a package of weeds in the mail. I have more than I can use.

#6

John,

I was somewhat operations oriented. But I have decided on a theme change, leaving the layout the same and adding even more sidings. I am going to make the entire thing basically one town and turn it into a switching layout. No real change other than a few more sidings but I will make it building intensive over the years as I go.

Cliff,

No duck unders. The only area that maybe looking like one is a lift bridge with hinges on one end so it lifts to walk through. I brought in a half a yard of crushed basalt that I sifted into three sizes: track ballast, yard rock, and walkway rock. Then another half a yard of clean fill dirt and screened the same way: big rock under the bench, medium gravel for the town area and pond, and fines for the bench work fill and ballast.

Lou,

It is very neat and clean. And this year so far I have had very very few weeds to pull. I do get a few but there is so much rock and very little soil that weeds don’t easily take hold. Please keep the weed seeds, we have plenty.

#7

Devon Sinsley said:

Nice shots. Is that shadow a telegraph pole, or am I being fooled by a clothesline rack?

#8

Not to shabby My Friend!!!

#9

Jon Radder said:

Nice shots. Is that shadow a telegraph pole, or am I being fooled by a clothesline rack?

Telephone/telegraph. It is just a 4X4 post but the cross arms are authentic and there is a variety of telephone and telegraph insulators on top. My dad is a collector and this is just some cheap duplicates for looks. I have a few on the entry fence as well which is made out of cross arms.

#10

So I have mentioned that I am changing themes. Not track so much but themes. And this blank canvas is one of the first things I want to tackle. I asked about cenemt rock casting well that is part of this. In the area that would extend beyond the bottom of this picture is where the rocky cliff is going to go. And then this part of the bench (maybe the entire bench) will be a mine. One of the premier mines in Burke, ID at the turn of the Century was the Hecla mine.

Photo from the Barnard-Stockbridge collection at the University of Idaho

It has some key features and is very typical of the turn of the century silver mines in the area. One of the reasons I want to do this mine is I have a nice track separation at this point of 12" So I can add ore bins that extend from the bench down to the lower track. The lower track is even a duel set of tracks so the ore cars can be parked and not block the mainline. then I want to sprawl the mine works across the whole bench.

Big dreams. May take the rest of my life time. But isn’t that the best part? Not sure how I will incorporate my wye track but I will make it work. Not looking to replicate the Hecla, just imitate it so it has the right feel.

i will have a second mine that will be the Hercules which in reality sat up Gorge Gulch and brought ore down by tram to Burke. Since I have been talked into doing and Fn2 section I will build the Hercules in another part of my yard and have the 32mm track run to the tail of this wye. It will dump ore into ore bins at the far end of the layout but then continue onto the bench to a small freight depot so goods can be picked up and hauled to the mine on the compressed air tramway.

I need to get busy. I am 51 and will be dead in a short 35 to 40 years. I better hurry.

#11

Another key feature to this entire area is that, as you can see from the above photo, the entire town is crammed into a canyon only a couple hundred yards wide. They used extensive cribbing (log retaining walls) and mine tailings to build up areas to get flat spots to park buildings. I have several places i have wanted to do this kind of cribbing. I am going to try and use the textured PVC wood and cut beams (not logs) and notch them and stack them Lincoln log style and glue with PVC glue to make up a nice weather proof crib wall. Stay tuned. The first of these cribbing projects is already in the design phase.

#12

Devon,

How do you intend to re-paint the house with the benchwork right up against it?

#13

Joe Zullo said:

Devon,

How do you intend to re-paint the house with the benchwork right up against it?

One of the reasons we redid the siding and painted before putting it up.

There is a small gap between the main siding and the bench. Enough to get a paint brush in there. The part that won’t be so good is the battins. They are flush. After we got way to far along we asked the same question. Not the best planning on our part. I am hoping between the fresh paint and the small gap we will be able to at least preserve the siding. Now in reality I am not super concerned with it. The siding is a double layer. The original siding is under that. Then a layer of 1" foam board insulation, and then the new siding over that. We only have 2x4 walls and not 2x6 so we wanted to add to the r value. So as far as actually protecting the house we are alright. But it sure would have been smart to leave a gap for painting.

The only thing that can’t get a fresh coat of paint is a 6 in wide strip of the battens

#14

Get Andy’s painter over and do some backdrop mountains there .

#15

Sean McGillicuddy said:

Get Andy’s painter over and do some backdrop mountains there .

Be interesting to see what she’d charge for mileage… (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)

#16

Actually I have a pretty fair painter at my disposal if I were to go that route. My son’s fiancé is a pretty decent artist. But I dont think I am gonna go that way. We talked about it when we painted but I don’t think I will. Who knows.

Joe,

Good news, I thought the bench was flush with battens. Went out to measure for the mine and I guess we did get smart and its actually about an inch or so off the battens.

#17

Well I was a few hours away from visiting Devon’s layout for the first time and we both cancelled and rescheduled. The 103-105 temps just wasn’t garden railroading type weather. The weather over here in Washington state has been crazy for the past week. Way too hot.

Guess there’s always a next time.